Vibe.com, November 29th, 2005
During Monday's proceedings, the prosecution insisted that they look through pages of text-messages sent between convicted drug dealer Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff, and the Gotti brothers, Irving and Christopher Lorenzo, according to MTV News.
Defense attorney Gerald Shargel argued against using the messages as evidence, citing the often-abbreviated messages. Because the Gottis' pager service only keeps transcripts of text messages up to 80 characters, some messages were incomplete or cut short, making it difficult to determine who sent the message or whom it was sent to. Shargel further argued that the tone of the messages could be misunderstood because jurors would be unable to "tell inflection, so they won't be able to tell if these messages are jokes or not."
One text message, which was either sent or received by Chris Gotti, read "I got my man in the office. I got 300." The response from Big John read "Make sure you don't have feds over there waiting for a n*gga," according to Billboard.com. While the prosecution alleged that Big John is B.J., an associate of McGriff's who was involved in questionable financial transactions with the label, the defense suggested he was probably just a bookie hoping to collect what he was owed.
Shargel hoped to flush out the messages by providing the jury with text messages that were sent before and after the ones presented by the prosecution.
Prosecuting attorney Carolyn Pokorny, meanwhile, said the messages helped show that the Gottis and Supreme were close. She also managed to connect more than $54,000 in trips Supreme had taken to Miami, Houston and Beverly Hills to Chris Gotti's American Express Business Platinum Card.
Shargel said that on Tuesday [November 30], when the court reconvenes, he plans to use statements from IRS agent Francis Mace about funds that were owed to the Inc. by Supreme or vice versa to contradict the prosecution. According to MTV News, the defense should then rest its case.
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